


Down to Business

by AnneMcSommers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Manipulative Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28970088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneMcSommers/pseuds/AnneMcSommers
Summary: Father's word was law, this was one thing Diego has always known.  And no matter how much he tried to escape it, in the end he did as he was told.
Kudos: 9
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Down to Business

There was one thing that everyone in The Umbrella Academy was sure of and that was the Sir Reginald Hargreeves’ AKA The Monocle’s AKA Father’s (never dad) word was law. It wasn’t something that they questioned as children, it just what was. Nannies that objected to the cold treatment of the children were summarily dismissed, and once Grace was completed, well she was quite literally programmed to do exactly what he wanted.

A schedule was set, and it was to be followed to the letter, there was no deviation, no fun and games excluding of course the half-hour allotted on Saturday afternoons from 1-1:30 pm and even then running around and laughing, anything that made noise really was frowned upon. It was preferred that you pursued a quiet activity like reading and that if possible you did it alone.

Its hard to explain to someone who didn’t experience it, that you could be that lonely growing up in a house with 6 siblings, parents, and a butler, even with the size of the house. It was even harder to explain that they had done what ever their father had asked. If that meant nearly drowning themselves in a tub testing the limits of their power, or throw a knife at a sibling, so be it. If father said it was to be done, it was, Father did not tolerate disagreement.

Disagreement led to punishment, and though one could argue that their training was in itself a punishment that at times violated the Geneva convention in terms of cruelty, the punishments were worse. 

He didn’t know what Father did to the others, but the handful of times that Diego had been punished he had nightmares for weeks. He tried to be Number one, be as good, better even than his brother, but he failed. Time and again he failed, and between that and his stutter he rarely spoke to anyone outside training except to his mother, even after he had gotten over it.

He knew his other siblings didn’t always feel the same, but he wasn’t Klaus, he couldn’t just rebel even with a cause. And after all, Five had disagreed only once with Father at the dinner table, and they had never seen him again.   
While their Father seemed sure he would turn up again, there was a part of Diego that wondered if he had really run off under his own power. But Diego continued to listen, because it was Father, and you did what Father told you.

He rarely even had the thought of questioning it until he was a teenager, and even then, it was a passing one, like I wish I could choose my own haircut, or it would be nice to not have to wear a uniform. Then Ben died, and everything changed. 

All of a sudden Klaus’s rebellion made sense, Vanya’s planning to go to music school, Allison’s dream or becoming an actress. Diego though, had believed it all those years, in helping people, and he couldn’t just stop. At the same time he knew he couldn’t stay here, in this house where Father’s word was law, and for the first time Diego was afraid of what Father might do.

The decision ended up being an easy one. He joined the police academy…under a false name. It had the structure he was used to, the helping people, and he made it 99% of the way through. 

He knew there were a ton of theories going around on why he got tossed, but in the end it wasn’t any of the ones people assumed. He wasn’t being a midnight vigilante, he wasn’t caught doing something illegal, it wasn’t even the fact he was technically using a false name, Diego in place of the registered Two. 

In the end it was nothing he could control, when they ran the final “check” before passing him, his name flagged as a member of The Umbrella Academy. While the precinct was fine with it, the higher ups feared that Diego’s “abilities” could be considered as unregistered weapons, that the busts he made could be overturned on technicalities of him having “superpowers”. 

It was bullshit, but it was bullshit that stuck and Diego was out. He soon ran low in cash, and ended up a fighter at a small boxing gym where he kept a roof, as it were, over his head in the way of a boiler room in return for mopping the floors. 

And Diego, put the mask back on, and went back to being his own version of number two. Helping people, the way his father had always told him he would.


End file.
